NEWS FROM THE JRF

Agudas Achim is honored to be welcoming JRF Board President Bob Barkin on Friday night, September 12th as part of our Friday B'Yachad events.  He will be meeting with us to talk about the work of the Reconstructionist movement nationally and internationally as well as highlighting the upcoming convention.  As dinner is also available that night, we hope to see many of you there!

Camp JRF had an extremely successful summer with over 320 campers (seven from Agudas Achim), our biggest number yet.  Camp also hosted 33 teens from the Noar Hadash Israel trip (Aaron Rudnick included), Family Camp (the Bodemer family was in attendance), and a Tikkun Olam program for post-B'nai Mitvah teens and their parents. 

The energy and excitement from these programs will be continuing in Boston November 13-16 at JRF's 42nd Convention - Transformative Judaism for the 21st Century.  Sixty different workshops will be offered on just about every imaginable area of Jewish communal life, including adult education, congregational development, tikkun olam, leadership, ritual and liturgy, youth, Israel, spirituality, and creativity.
The early registration discount is available through October 20 and more detailed information will soon be available through the synagogue.  Until then, the convention website is being regularly updated: www.jrf.org.

The convention will be highlighting many of the rich Jewish resources in Boston and nationally including:

- JONATHAN SARNA of Brandeis University and a leading commentator on American Jewish history, religion and life.

- RABBI HAYIM HERRING, Executive Director of STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal), which provided the seed funding for what has evolved into our Shabbat B'yahad program.

- RABBIS JOY LEVITT and MICHAEL STRASSFIELD, co-editors of A Night of Questions, a Reconstructionist Passover Haggadah, in addition to Rabbi Strassfeld's being one of the authors of the revolutionary Jewish Catalogue published in 1973. 

- RABBI TOBA SPITZER, rabbi at Congregation Dorshei Tzedek in West Newton, Massachusetts and the president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association.

- Praying with Lior, an award-winning film that celebrates the Bar Mitzvah of Lior Liebling, who has Down Syndrome, and explores themes of disability and spirituality.

- Mayyim Hayyim, a non-orthodox mikveh in Newton. 

Check out Tikkun resources in our JRF Resource Library
http://www2.jrf.org/resources/jrf_resources.php?tid=3:6&show=#Tikkun%20Olam.